Kat Croft befriended a Marine Raider. After his death, she was witness to the way his brothers in arms welcomed him home from war and honored his memory. She has decided she would like to try to capture the story on film, and is seeking a very modest budget of $15,000 for production. She has raised more than a third of this money already. If any of you would like to support her efforts, please follow the link above. Continue reading

I'm generally not a fan of the way people love to hate the Palin children as a way of hating their mother, but I'm afraid I have to give you this one.
http://m.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/bristol-palin-earns-262000-as-abstinence-ambassador-201154

For those of you following along, the independent movie being made by Ranger Up and Art 15 clothing has done extremely well in its fundraising cycle. It easily made its initial goal, and with three days remaining has more than doubled it. If they get to $700K, they promise to add CAS and rotar...

For those of you following along, the independent movie being made by Ranger Up and Art 15 clothing has done extremely well in its fundraising cycle. It easily made its initial goal, and with three days remaining has more than doubled it. If they get to $700K, they promise to add CAS and rotary wing air support to the final product. Continue reading

If you want to complain about post-war treatment of former enemies, I'd think you'd complain less about Nazis getting Social Security and more about our handling of Japan's Unit 731. None of that takes away from the valor of the men whose graves lie in these foreign lands described by the article, however.

The Washington Post brings us the story of the Dutch who continue to honor the fallen Americans who fought the Nazis. On Sunday, they came again, bearing Memorial Day bouquets for men and women they never knew, but whose 8,300 headstones the people of the Netherlands have adopted as their own. ...

The Washington Post brings us the story of the Dutch who continue to honor the fallen Americans who fought the Nazis. On Sunday, they came again, bearing Memorial Day bouquets for men and women they never knew, but whose 8,300 headstones the people of the Netherlands have adopted as their own. For the American relatives of the fallen, it was an outpouring of gratitude almost as stunning as the rows of white marble crosses and Jewish Stars of David at the Netherlands American Cemetery. Each grave has been adopted by a Dutch or, in some cases, Belgian or German family, as well as local schools, companies and military organizations. More than 100 people are on a waiting list to become caretakers. Continue reading

So the boys at Range15 made their initial goal easily. They are now within fifty K of their stretch goal of half a million dollars. If they get it, they get Marcus Luttrell and... well, see for yourself. Well, anyway the boys are having fun with it. And why shouldn't they? Continue reading

You're probably right. It's pretty clear from the director they picked that they're aiming at a cult film. Some of their offers suggest this too -- especially the one where you can buy a savior role, and give a "poignant" speech while pulling their butts out of the fire. I'd say that they're intending to make something more like Stripes or Anchorman than a serious war movie.
On the other hand, what do I care? I'm willing to support it just because a couple of MOH recipients want to make a movie. If the only thing it accomplishes is them getting to do something they'd really like to do, good enough. That's plenty of reason to kick in a few bucks.
Looks like they've made their dough, by the way. So one way or another, we'll see what they come up with.

If you like the brand of completely inappropriate veteran humor seen regularly in Ranger UP's videos or Mat Best's fake rap battles, you will love the opportunity to help them make a movie. With Dakota Meyer. And Tim Kennedy.

If you like the brand of completely inappropriate veteran humor seen regularly in Ranger UP's videos or Mat Best's fake rap battles, you will love the opportunity to help them make a movie. With Dakota Meyer. And Tim Kennedy. Continue reading

I knew Ed Cardon when he was a one-star, serving as DCG-S for 3ID in Iraq. He was a very smart guy, and seems to have gone on to great things. He flubs a couple of dates, but it's just the verbal version of a typo. It's worth listening to what he has to say. Continue reading

I'm working on a project that involves a history of these groups. If you have stories or memories about dealing with them you might like included, hit me at grimbeornr AT yahoo DOT com. Continue reading

It'd be pretty embarrassing to try to say there was no civil war. The other points are accurate, however. I was there for the Surge, and it did work. We gave them a chance, and it might have held if a certain president had negotiated a bilateral security agreement that kept a stabilizing presence on the ground. Instead, the agreements between the factions we painstakingly crafted fell apart once Maliki was liberated from anything that could restrain him from following his worst impulses.
Which impulses have gotten pretty bad, lately. The militia he's deploying are striving to prove themselves less legitimate than ISIS as representatives of a governing force.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ad6_1425405833
It was like that when I got there. It wasn't like that when I left. I'm pretty sure the reason it's like that again now is a complete failure by the administration that tracks right to the top.

This assessment by "an unofficial brain trust" within the Interagency was commissioned by Major General Nagata, Commander, US Special Operations Command Central. They're pretty impressed. Continue reading

The ability to hire career prison guards may in some sense be a proof of legitimacy, but I'm not convinced it's the best such proof. Nor do I think that prisons are a good for the health of a society -- our own over-reliance on them is already one of the things I think most worth criticizing in my own.
The Pope doesn't care for executions either, though, so you're in good company.

I would have said that the sin deserving the cesspool was collaborating with Nazis, but I suppose we can differ on interpretations. Shooting the Nazis doesn't strike me as particularly bad, though they formally deserved a POW status that terrorists and guerrillas often do not: they had likely deserved from French hands what they got at French hands.
In any case, pirates, brigands, enslavers of women and destroyers of historical treasures are not high on my list of people with whom I'd like to share the world. I see no reason to pay to house them forever. Once they've had the mandatory status hearing to demonstrate that they are in fact members of such a band they -- like the part of Blackbeard's crew that didn't die with him -- deserve the rope.

I mean, that may not be Mattis' concept -- he talks about holding them 'until the end of hostilities,' which may mean 'for life.' But I think it's a workable concept for members of these groups. Otherwise, you're introducing a radicalizing virus into whatever prisoner setup you do have.

That's right, prisons were very important to the formation of some of these groups. We provided them with a safe place to meet and develop relationships and plans: they couldn't trust each other enough to do it. (Likewise, now that they're back 'in the wild,' al Qaeda in Iraq and the Islamic State of Iraq have broken up again; they're fighting not just each other in Syria, now known as al Nusra Front and ISIS, but are also preying on erstwhile allies among the Syrian resistance).
So I think the concept is summary execution -- which, by the way, was the standard the French Resistance preferred in WWII. My father used to convey a story from one of our uncles about some POWs he turned over to a French Resistance unit, only to be met with horror by his commanders when he reported it. Rushing back, he found that the prisoners were nowhere to be found. "They all got sick and died," the Resistance told him.

This is the policy likeliest to succeed, provided that you're willing to accept the secession of Western Iraq. Our government is opposed to that, but I see no reason why we should be at this point. Baghdad has proven it was, and remains, unwilling to treat the Sunni population justly. It held...

That's roughly my view as well. A Kurdish free state, and a Sunni tribal state of some sort in eastern Syria and Western Iraq. Both of these would be plausible buffers against Iran, as well as potential allies (once we recover from this momentary lapse of sanity with regard to our Iran policy).

This is the policy likeliest to succeed, provided that you're willing to accept the secession of Western Iraq. Our government is opposed to that, but I see no reason why we should be at this point. Baghdad has proven it was, and remains, unwilling to treat the Sunni population justly. It held...

Turkey appears to be allowing ISIS to resupply from its territory mostly without interdiction. There have been a few exchanges of fire, but the Turks seem to favor a radical Sunni state on their border to an Iranian proxy. They've offered similar free passes to al Nusra Front, which is the group formerly known as al Qaeda in Iraq.

This is the policy likeliest to succeed, provided that you're willing to accept the secession of Western Iraq. Our government is opposed to that, but I see no reason why we should be at this point. Baghdad has proven it was, and remains, unwilling to treat the Sunni population justly. It held...